Activision to slash headcount by 500

Activision will be making some changes as the company announced its numbers. Despite profits being up, the company will be realigning some things, which will result in a loss of about 500 jobs as the company makes some changes, with a heavy emphasis going forward on their electronic delivery and subscription-based services.

That is not all that we learned. Activision will not be releasing any music or skateboarding games during 2011. The new True Crime: Hong Kong game has also apparently been canned, and the Guitar Hero or music development teams are being dissolved. The news of no Tony Hawk title during 2011 marks the first time since 1999 that a new title has not arrived in the franchise.

As for what we can expect, look for a lot more downloadable content from Activision, as company was able to move 1.4 million downloads of the latest Call of Duty map pack in the first 24 hours. Also look for two releases from Blizzard, which are Diablo 3 and Heart of the Swarm (which is the first add-on pack for Starcraft 2).

Activision does not currently look for these titles to arrive this year, but instead it is expecting them in 2012. Activision will continue to invest heavily in the Call of Duty projects that the company continues to work on, which includes some sort of Call of Duty-based subscription title.